So Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines will be a decade old this year. LET'S TALK ABOUT OTHER RPG'S

[TheGreatOne]

Not to mention the fact you were loosing and resorting to popularity arguments on a forum that shuns most popular games made during the last 10 years. It's not my problem you're an arrogant casual. You're like a Mass Effect fanboy coming here, praising Bioware. "What do you mean Planescape: Torment is better? Prove it!!!!! i ahve never heard about it Mass Effect was IGN game of the year" and after that "no im not going to play it looks like carp lol"

 

[Irenaeus]

Go play Super Donkey Yoshi Bros, Roguey

We want to talk about how great Bloodlines was and lament that never anything like tahat came close afterwards.

 

[Roguey]

Go play Super Donkey Yoshi Bros, Roguey

We want to talk about how great Bloodlines was and lament that never anything like tahat came close afterwards.

Bloodlines was outdone by both New Vegas and Human Revolution.

I'd even say Alpha Protocol had more competently-executed gameplay (but not by much, they're both failures).

 

[Irenaeus]

In the words of my brother, who is here reading this: "They are very different games".

 

[Ninjerk]

Irenaeus, the abyss!

 

[Akasen]

I'm just slowly not giving a shit about what Rougey and TGO are talking about. Between the shitting on New Vegas and the popular statistics, I am just wishing for a nuke thread button right now.

 

[Jick Magger]

It's the old fanboy doctrine; it's impossible to like both, it's either one or the other. Draw your line and start fighting for your side, soldier.

 

[CyberP]

Human Revolution's combat and stealth are Josh-approved.

Stop speaking for the man unless you can provide sources. If Sawyer approves of Human Revolution's objectively fucktarded stealth then I just lost a lot of respect for him.
I expect to see every "Josh-approved" statement in blue from now on.

 

[DalekFlay]

Stop speaking for the man unless you can provide sources.

He/she/it is Josh Sawyer, keep up.

 

[Roguey]

Stop speaking for the man unless you can provide sources. If Sawyer approves of Human Revolution's objectively fucktarded stealth then I just lost a lot of respect for him.
I expect to see every "Josh-approved" statement in blue from now on.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/346531368475316776

Yes. I thought it was excellent. The only aspects I didn't like were the dialogue "battles", the balance of some of the Praxis upgrades, and how the branching ending was handled. Otherwise, I thought it was a fantastic game.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/232918032568036801

I haven't played Skyrim, but DX:HR is pretty darn good!

Note: He has since played Skyrim and has sunk dozens of hours into it.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235142729137391136

Do you think Deus Ex 3's cover system is awesome for gameplay or does it "break" the game by allowing you to see stuff you shouldn't be able to see?

Yeah, that's the game. Creeping up to corners and peeking around them in third person is what the core gameplay mechanic is. Without that ability, stealth gameplay and cover shooting would feel like garbage.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235146147746808726

"Stealth gameplay and cover shooting would feel like garbage"

But it's more realistic and tactical.

Actually, it's anti-tactical because you're removing a enormous amount of information from the players, forcing them to essentially guess when it's safe to poke their heads out. Sometimes they get shot in the face, sometimes their stealth is ruined. When it happens, it's pure luck. The player didn't make a mistake, just guessed wrong. Why is that something to strive for?

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235163571753856262

That kind of stealth gameplay certainly didn't detract from Thief's gameplay.

Yes, because the entire model of stealth in Thief is completely different. The person asking the question wasn't asking for Thief's stealth, just to remove DX:HR's 3rd person view. Since DX:HR's stealth is based on sound and (more importantly) line of sight, not light levels, this would be catastrophically bad.

In Thief, their equivalent to being able to peer around corners was being able to observe from darkness. Most corners and approaches were darkened to allow players to move to a position from which they could observe guard patterns with effectively no fear of detection. Much like Deus Ex and Splinter Cell and various other games with good stealth mechanics, the guards follow extremely regular patrol patterns so players can patiently memorize them and either evade or stalk their way forward.

"Realistically" I doubt the residents of the City all love living in buildings that are so dark that you can navigate most hallways without being able to see a human being crouching 2' from you, and in which there are amazingly consistent shadow paths through which a talented thief can pass undetected, but these are understandable conventions for the type of gameplay the designers were trying to produce.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235201156538704283

Don't forget that Thief also had corner leaning which served the same purpose as the third person cover mechanic

The majority of observation was typically done from darkness outside of cover lean situations. Several stealth games use corner lean, but (IIRC) it's almost always risk-free, so you're still hidden. I think it's a weird standard if sticking your head around the corner while being effectively invisible is fine but making third person observations around the corner is bad. Both are "unrealistic" conventions that the designers use to facilitate the obvious core mechanic of stealth gameplay: low-risk observation of AI behavior from a fixed position.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235216577476171231

So adding more ways to get caught didn't seem like a smart direction to go in unless we could do a better job solving more ways to feed that back to the player and give the player even more tools for hiding.

Yep. Feedback is very important in stealth games. It's one of the reasons I really did not like the shift in light detection mechanics from Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory to Splinter Cell: Double Agent (or, to be quite honest, any stealth game where visibility/awareness is communicated to the player through a binary switch).

Things like the light gem in Thief or the light/sound meters in Chaos Theory provide you with a more graduated level of feedback about where you stand. Think of it this way: you can have a conventional speedometer, or you can have a light that goes off after you've exceeded the speed limit *and* a cop just hit you with a radar gun. The former gives you a sense of position relative to the boundary as well as a sense of acceleration toward and away from that boundary. The latter just tells you that you've screwed up.

Not to mention that in SC:DA, they used a green/red toggle for detection, making it literally unplayable for me.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235284823680222305

I'm also a Thief fan (and ghost), and for me "the equivalent to being able to peer around corners" is just listening to the guards' movements. It rewards player skill and helps with the immersion, and it's more realistic than a magic floating camera.

What about the guards who aren't moving (of which there are several even in Lord Bafford's Manor)? Even if you know they're there, you don't know their facing unless you have some way to observe them.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235421571697620531

You know in Deus Ex:HR you can also hug/hide behind cover in 1st person if you choose to right?

Sure, if you want to effectively not use their stealth mechanics.

http://new.spring.me/#!/JESawyer/q/235421846139320996

I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?

Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too.

Conclusions to draw: 1) Josh is always right 2) Don't fucking doubt me when I talk about his opinions.

 

[Athelas]

I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?

I bet this was someone from the Codex.

 

[CyberP]

He/she/it is Josh Sawyer, keep up.

Eh? This fucker said Bioshock's core gameplay was superior to SS2's. Bioshock barely even qualifies as a game for Buddha's sake.
This isn't Sawyer.

@J.E Roguey: Regenerating cloak that renders you invisible to all threats in the game except motion-sensing mines.

In addition to all the other fucktarded-ness that goes without saying.

 

[Machocruz]

I wonder what he'd have to say about stealth in the various Metal Gear Solid games. They are quite a bit more primitive than Thief or Splinter cell, but harder than (most) Splinter Cells or Human Revolution, the latter in which I never was seen once on my first playthrough, and that was on the hardest difficulty. MGS also uses third person cover, so I don't think that's the problem with whatever HR's prolbem is. The guard positions and movements were Fisher Price roofles level, I know that much.

 

[CyberP]

"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too."
-Sawyer

See, it's opinions like this I respect. Realism/simulation is important in a game that strives for it, but gameplay should always come first. Conversely, the majority of what Roguey is posting is nonsensical garbage.

 

[CyberP]

@J.E Roguey: Regenerating cloak that renders you invisible to all threats in the game except motion-sensing mines.
.

Oh, sorry, I forgot the "threat" of falling from height if you didn't install the automated Icarus Landing System aug, in addition to the extremely rare electrical field or gas leak which too have corresponding augs that result in immunity against the threats.

Human Revolution is glorified popamole. There are aspects that do indeed deserve praise, but it's one step forward, half a step back...from Invisible War.

 

[CyberP]

Urgh, some of what JES said regarding Popamole Revolution is very disagreeable however.

"Actually, it's [first person cover] anti-tactical because you're removing a enormous amount of information from the players, forcing them to essentially guess when it's safe to poke their heads out. Sometimes they get shot in the face, sometimes their stealth is ruined. When it happens, it's pure luck. The player didn't make a mistake, just guessed wrong. Why is that something to strive for?"

Since when where AI reaction times instantaneous in Popamole Revolution? There is an AI state where they seek/confirm the player's presence before attacking, unless you are right in their face, just like in Deus Ex. You have to effectively not use > half of the designers nonsense to get any kind of challenge from the stealth. I won't even approach the rest, I'll put it down to his undoubted state of confusion all the gold overload.

 

[Excidium]

"Actually, it's [first person cover] anti-tactical because you're removing a enormous amount of information from the players, forcing them to essentially guess when it's safe to poke their heads out. Sometimes they get shot in the face, sometimes their stealth is ruined. When it happens, it's pure luck. The player didn't make a mistake, just guessed wrong. Why is that something to strive for?"

What crockshit, this is why we have Dishonored's blind npcs

 

[CyberP]

Indeed.

Urgh, typos in my previous.

Where were
designers designer's

Give me my edit button back you sadists!

 

[CyberP]

this is why we have Dishonored's blind npcs

^Oh, you edited. How do you mean, as a result of this type of mentality or?

Dishonored is intentionally easy all-round because money. I hear there was conflicts between Smith and Colantonio as Colantonio wanted the game to be challenging but Smith disagreed (because money), or some such. Take with a grain of salt.

 

[Excidium]

^Oh, you edited. How do you mean, as a result of this type of mentality or?

I mean how you can literally have half your body out of cover and nobody will see you, there's even some webcomic mocking it

 

[agentorange]

in Return to Castle Wolfenstein enemies will see you when you lean around a corner.

 

[CyberP]

I mean how you can literally have half your body out of cover and nobody will see you, there's even some webcomic mocking it

Sorry, I should have been clearer: I intended "how do you mean" as a response to "this is why".

 

[Roguey]

I mean how you can literally have half your body out of cover and nobody will see you, there's even some webcomic mocking it

That's a good thing. Random failure ftl.

 

[Jools]

I mean how you can literally have half your body out of cover and nobody will see you, there's even some webcomic mocking it

I usually RP-justify the undetected leaning by pretending that I'm just listening in to the guard's footsteps/breathing/armour-creaking, or that I'm just leaning with an eye, so that only 1/3rd of my face would be exposed: assuming I was in a dark area and the guard wasn't paying too much attention to the surface I'm leaning out from (usually low or dark, or at the sides, whereas the guard would be most likely be looking straight ahead and only flicking quick glances left and right), I would probably be overlooked.

After all, it's a darn videogame, and this subject is one that is amongst the hardest to boil down to numbers and game mechanics.

 

[Irenaeus]

Larping as usual I see.